nothing like an 8 hour long filibuster on a sunday morning

yeah... obama kind of dropped the ball on this one.

bernie sanders: "it seems to me to be unconscionable for my conservative friends and for everyone else in this country, to be driving up this already too high national debt by giving tax breaks to millionaires and billionaires who don't need and in a number of cases, mr. president, don't even want it."

"or tickling your butthole"

the next logical step:

no, ann coulter isn't a homophobe at all...

i have to admit, i've never read fox nation and i don't a lot of attention to fox news. but now that i've seen it once i'll probably be addicted to it.

fox nation published an ann coulter opinion piece today about the TSA regulations in which she suggests that members of congress also go through the intrusive airport searches before entering congressional office buildings.

she gets in a little jab and congressman barney frank: "We've patted you down twice, Congressman Frank. Why don't you just go to your office now?"

why is that? because barney frank is gay he probably would like being patted down by strangers? classy, coulter, as usual.

it's kind of like when she got applauded for calling john edwards a "faggot" in this video

or the time she made the joke about two things gay men CAN'T do: get married and throw a baseball without looking like a girl.

because when you're a lady with long blonde hair and skinny, skeletor arms it's FUNNY to be hateful.

for all of our friends in north korea

most of us know that yesterday north korea killed four people(including two civilians) on a south korean island. this is horrifying for many different reasons--one being that tensions between the (communist) north korea and (not communist) south korea are always running high and people sometimes forget that.

it's important for politicians to react swiftly to news of north korea's attack on south korea, because they don't want people to start freaking out about north korea's nuclear capabilities etc.

so thank the lord baby jesus that 2010 presidential candidate sarah palin was on the glenn beck radio show to soothe the public and prove just how great she would be as president of the united states.

when asked by beck how she herself would have dealt with the attacks, ms. palin responded:

"This speaks to a bigger picture here that certainly scares me in terms of our national security policy but obviously we've gotta stand with our North Korean allies."

yeah.... north korea is not one of america's allies.. in fact, north korea is one of the original members of the axis of evil. that's the opposite of an ally. but i mean, it's the radio and sometimes ladies can't remember facts off the top of their heads without having them written on their hands. she's a beauty queen not a nobel prize winner: pat the pretty bitch on the head, give her a cookie, and send her on to the next radio show content in knowing that she tried her "darn" hardest!

and why should she have to remember the difference between north and south? communist and not communist? ally or axis member? because she' wants to be the president? well.. that's just a double standard!! probably people are being so hard on her because she's a WOMAN!

or maybe just because she's stupid and always on the radio and tv and god only knows why people listen to her at all.

she was corrected by beck and continued the interview. glenn beck for president?

what's the canadian equivalent? buy a truck get a free beaver tail?

a car dealership in florida is engaging in basically the smartest and most awesome advertising ploy of all time.

buy a truck, get a free AK-47!!!

nick ginetta, the owner of the dealership, said he came up with the idea in honour of veterans day.

he says he's giving away the assault rifle “to honour all the sacrifices that the veterans gave to this country, which give us the right to own weapons in this country.”

yes, because i'm sure 9/10 veterans would agree that the right to own weapons was exactly what they fought for.

actually, the right to bear arms in the united states was the second amendment to the united states constitution and bill of rights, it was adopted in 1791. i'm not sure i could name a war that was fought for the right to bear arms after 1791 but i'm no history scholar.

because it's not enough just to have the right to bear arms, you have to exercise your right and get as many guns as possible of varying types. use it or lose it!

cindy mccain kicks john mccain in the butt.

interesting!

this is another celebrity "don't bully" video, but this one has a verrryy surprising twist:



oh yeah, that's cindy mccain. that's cindy mccain, the wife of john mccain. john mccain who is a staunch supporter of "don't ask, don't tell."

i think cindy mccain is crazy, but i really like this video just because she's in it saying what she's saying. any one of those celebrities could have made the jab about lgbt people not being able to serve their country, but she does it. it's such a public slap in the face to her weird husband who continues to block the repeal of "don't ask, don't tell" for god knows what reason.

i kind of hate celebrity videos, but i love juicy political gossip.

if this is torture, sign me up for another one.

in the news today george bush admits to directly authorizing the use of waterboarding in interrogations. he also said he'd "do it again" because it saves/saved lives.

torture doesn't work. it's never worked. even napoleon knew it didn't work and he was CRAZY.
as he wrote in a letter to louis alexandre berthier in 1798:

"the barbarous custom of having men beaten who are suspected of having important secrets to reveal must be abolished. it has always been recognized that this way of interrogating men, by putting them to torture, produces nothing worthwhile. the poor wretches say anything that comes into their mind and what they think the interrogator wishes to know."



but i guess george bush doesn't consider waterboarding to be torture and he refuses to call it that. the real truth of the matter might be that he thinks waterboarding is some kind of fun extreme sport, meant to be a treat for prisoners or detainees who give up special secrets.

take a look at that HAIR!

sarah palin has really outdone herself here.. that is some BIG hair. bitch is really bringing the beehive back.

if you've ever been to america you'll know that hair is bigger there than it is in canada. it just is. you walk through an airport and those ladies have their hair standing tall and proud--i don't know how they manage to do it(especially the short haired ladies), but they do. it's an american secret i guess.

when i was working as a server at a restaurant frequented by a lot of tourists i could always spot the americans because the lady american always had this tower of hair. at first it was a running joke to spot the americans by their hair, but soon we all realized that it worked, when we joked about who was american it generally turned out to be true.

sarah palin has always rocked this hair so i wonder if maybe it's particular to the "conservative" demographic? or maybe a lady with a tower of hair looks more trustworthy?

it's a mystery. maybe sarah palin's crazy just doesn't fit into regular hair.

i dont want a gay lady making me feel like that!

"when the shit hits the fan, and the taliban decides to nuke us, i don't want to be down there in a fox hole and see that everyone is knocking back appletinis and watching sex and the city two."

G.A.Y.S. (Guys Against You Serving) from Thomas Lennon

the "it gets better project".. maybe that'll help make things better?

doesn't it feel like you can't read the news lately without hearing about a teenager or young adult somewhere who has committed suicide because they were bullied about their sexuality.

i don't like the term "gay teens" being bandied about in headlines. don't get me wrong, it's important to identify sexuality as a cause of bullying, but i think that framing it just as "gay teen commits suicide!" puts the bullies in the periphery. bullies are bullies, and they've been around forever--causing suicides and killing other people. it also makes it seem like bullying gays is a new phenomenon and it really isn't. on one hand, it's great that the news is willing to cover "gay" issues now, but ten years ago when a "gay teen" killed themselves it wasn't in the national headlines.

also, at the risk of this being an unpopular theory, i think it's important that media (and people consuming media) be careful about catch all headlines. like "gay teen kills self after bullying", or "guy jumps from bridge for just ONE reason." yes, bullying often leads to suicide, but by making it just about bullying we ignore the other reasons that a person might want to kill themselves.

also, is bullying really the right term for what's happening? after reading this story about the rutgers student, tyler clementi, it seems to be essential that these crimes don't just get thrown together under the umbrella of bullying.

tyler clementi killed himself after his roommate and another student secretly taped and streamed him having sex in his own room. honestly, videotaping someone having sex in their OWN bed and broadcasting it on the internet?? well, first of all it's a crime and the two people who did it should be prosecuted for it. second of all, even if you aren't gay and someone does that to you it could be enough to make you kill yourself. to have your privacy invaded, to have your body on display, to have something never intended for anyone else seen by any number of people on the internet?

it's a nightmare, some people's WORST nightmare, to have their private lives taped secretly. and it almost seems like the tone of the article suggests that because tyler was gay, the taping counts as "just bullying" instead of an actual criminal act because it was prompted by his sexuality.

this takes me back to my point about not just focusing on "bullying" as the cause of such deaths. we have to look at systemic causes of bullying someone over their sexuality(or for any reason). we have to look at heterosexist and homophobic school curricula. we have to look at government and social policies and at laws that discriminate against certain kinds of people and make them more vulnerable to being victims of specific crimes.

anyways, the extra focus on bullying around sexuality is important and necessary as long as we don't assume it's a new phenomenon or that every case is exactly the same. this isn't new and that approach to ending these kinds of hate crimes has to be broad and not simply focus on one aspect of a person's life that might make them want to end it.

even while the internet is providing more avenues for bullying, with a larger audience, the internet has also been a way to connect the dots about bullying/hate crimes.

case in point: the it gets better project.

dan savage, of the savage love column started the it gets better project on you tube after hearing about a teen suicide, he says: "I posted something to my blog about Billy Lucas — who might not have even been gay, he wasn't out if he was gay, and not all kids who experience anti-gay bullying are gay — but he was bullied for being gay. ... And I was reading about him and about Justin Aaberg [another teenager who committed suicide after being bullied at school] in Minnesota, and the reaction as an openly gay adult, always, when you read these stories is, 'I wish I could've talked to this kid for five minutes, so I could've told him it gets better"

so that's what he's done. it's a really interesting project, especially at a time when rights around sexual orientation/preference are being turned around as fast as they can progress. gay marriage, prop 8, don't ask/don't tell-- these are all great reasons to feel desolate about the future.

"liberals can get on my nerves a little bit"

john waters on politics: "because they passed the health law, that's the oddest thing to riot about: that poor people could have health care? that made people break windows?! but i'm happy they broke windows, why didn't we do that when bush was president? why didn't we riot?"

who is christine o'donnell?

apparently there's a new pretty lady on the american political scene. pretty and crazy lady, that is.

she recently won the republican senate primary in delaware, and is heavily backed by sarah palin and the Tea Party. you know what that means, she's awesome!!!

backed by sarah palin, super christian, really right wing, involved in tea party politics? i'm sure you can guess that some real gems fall out of this bitches mouth!!

let's read some of them.

on masturbation: "It is not enough to be abstinent with other people, you also have to be be abstinent alone. The Bible says that lust in your heart is committing adultery, so you can't masturbate without lust."
(also, it's weird that in this video rachel maddow won't say "masturbation".) also, this video.

on the bible and the sexual revolution: "We took the Bible and prayer out of public schools. Now we're having weekly shootings. We had the 60s sexual revolution, and now people are dying of AIDS."

on her opponent, mike castle( a man who has never lost an election in his career): "You know, these are the kind of cheap, underhanded, un-manly tactics that we've come to expect from Obama's favorite Republican, Mike Castle [..] Mike, this is not a bake-off, get your man-pants on."

get your man pants on, but don't masturbate in them!!!!

it kind of seems like she's being sold as another sarah palin, red suit and all. in some pictures she's even wearing sarah palin glasses. the only difference is that she's a little fatter than palin.

it's weird and bizarre that someone like this could win the primary. but, like rachel maddow explains in that video, it's a strange year all around in american politics. people who would never have won in a million years are winning state by state.

like sarah palin, o'donnell has something to say about everything--including middle earth:

"You see Tolkien's wisdom applied to just about everything: Tolkien and communism, Tolkien and industrialization... In researching this topic I even found a book on Tolkien and sexual fetishes....surprising, then, especially in today's very hyper-sensitive, post-Gloria Steinem world, that there's such a lack of commentary on Tolkien and women. ... Is it that people assume that women don't have an interest in Tolkien?"

waaaaaaaaacky.

hold on a second.

i'm sorry, but how is a president allowed to state their personal position on a polarizing issue and then think that it doesn't influence public opinion or legal battles?

white house advisor david axelrod told MSNBC that "The president does oppose same-sex marriage, but he supports equality for gay and lesbian couples, and benefits and other issues, and that has been effectuated in federal agencies under his control."

axelrod went on to say that president obama has always opposed prop 8 because "he felt it was divisive, he felt that it was mean spirited."

um, it isn't "mean spirited" to decide to take away someone's basic human right to a social institution... it's evil. as the president of the united states, doesn't obama have some kind of (at least) surface level responsibility to ensure that the "majority" of people don't decide to take away other people's rights? or, in this case, that right wing fundamentalists don't hijack a referendum?

and how does obama support "equality" for gays and lesbians while simultaneously opposing the right to marry the person they love? it just doesn't make sense, at all.

i've always had a problem with obama, and there's always something new to add to the pile. you can't just pretend to be progressive to get voted in. you can't just wave "yes we can" in people's faces and then be like "naaaaaaah" afterwards.

you can't put a motherfucking PRIDE RAINBOW on your official campaign buttons and not support gay marriage. you just can't. it just ain't right.

supporting same sex marriage shouldn't be something that you aren't into. if you want to discuss the ideology of marriage or all of the nuances of gay rights and marriage that's cool, but same sex marriage is a RIGHT and the president of the united states of american should not be opposed to basic human rights.

now, we party.

how exciting is this? how much does this renew your faith in humanity a little bit?

california judge REJECTS same sex marriage ban

the judge, Chief U.S. District Judge Vaughn Walker, rule that the ban was unconstitutional despite being decided by voters.

i bet judge walker is all smiles today, he's a hero!!!!

do ask, don't kill. interesting concept.

there's a lot of "don't ask, don't tell" coverage right now and we posted something about allanturing a little while ago that was a pro-repeal for dadt.

this, however, is the best:


taken in san francisco, this ad was thrown up over an "approved" ad. it resonates.

it's similar to the sentiment raised by people/groups during the gay marriage debates in canada--should we or shouldn't we be fighting for the right to engage in institutions that have not only historically excluded us, but are also institutions that uphold certain values and systems that we might not believe in.

of course everyone should have the right to be married, to serve openly in the military, adopt children, etc. but there are broader questions that need to be asked about changing institutions before participating in them.

what? hospitals need electricity? get out of here!

the united states is worried that once they leave, iraqis won't be able to keep up with the reconstruction the americans began.

the u.s government has spent $53 billion on reconstruction in iraq since 2003. the money has been spent on hospitals, water treatment plants, electricity substations, schools and bridges.

from the new york times:

"The projects run the gamut — from a cutting-edge, $270 million water treatment plant in Nasiriya that works at a fraction of its intended capacity because it is too sophisticated for Iraqi workers to operate, to a farmers’ market that farmers cannot decide how to share, to a large American hospital closed immediately after it was handed over to Iraq because the government was unable to supply it with equipment, a medical staff or electricity."

surprise, surprise the american government spent billions of dollars on "reconstruction" that actually would never be used by iraqis.

let's just stop pretending that these billions of dollars went to not-for profit engineers, construction workers, etc because that just isn't the truth.

the reason the united states spent billions of dollars on 'reconstruction' in iraq is because the money went to american/american friendly contractors.

many years ago, when my little brother was still an apprentice in his trade, he was offered a job in iraq. pulling cable or something like that(which is what apprentices do).

he would get paid something like $10'000/month(at least) in american dollars if he wanted the job.

the only draw back was that the turn over for workers was so high because they were injured or killed so often so he basically had to sign away any liability on the part of the company for shady working conditions or death.

basically it's like the documentary iraq for sale, where they recruit truck drivers to run non-military equipment and then run them through red zones and live combat. then the truck drivers die, and the contractors are all like "sorry widows, we didn't put them in armored trucks or protect them in any way, because that would cost us a tiny fraction of the billions of dollars we're making on this project."

because truck drivers and electricians are expendable when there are billions of dollars on the line. (there's a really good article from 2004 about the "private contractor gravy train" compliments of the republican party HERE)

so of course all of the projects those men and women worked on will be useless once the army retreats, because they were never meant to work in the first place.

does the miss california sex tape count?

whaaaaat?

the supreme court of alabama recently upheld a weird state obsecenity law that BANS the sale or promotion of sex toys.

the law originated not in the 1800's but in 1998, when the alabama legislature passed an amendment to the already present obscenity laws making it a crime "to distribute any device designed or marketed as useful primarily for the stimulation of human genital organs for anything of pecuniary value."

the law doesn't criminalize masturbation or mutual masturbation, and you can still buy sex toys across state lines and then bring them back to alabama, but still...

you can read about the legal context and the consitutional right to sexual freedom here

public health care ate stephen hawking!

talks about health care reform in the states has finally proved, once and for all, how nutty those people are.

or, how nutty a lot of them are.

people will say just about anything to discredit public health care, mainly because they're scared they'll have to give up a fraction of their own privilege to provide for those who have none.

i think they should. i think if you make a shit load of money and are a car driving, service using citizen then you should pay more because you probably use more.

it just seems fair. but, my ideas of fair are a bit different and they got me fired this year so i'll just move onto my favorite argument AGAINST public health care so far(from the Ny Times):

"In an editorial denouncing Democratic health reform plans, Investor’s Business Daily tried to frighten its readers by declaring that in Britain, where the government runs health care, the handicapped physicist Stephen Hawking “wouldn’t have a chance,” because the National Health Service would consider his life “essentially worthless.”

except stephen hawking was born in britain and has lived there all of his life.

you know it's bad when people start holding stephen hawking over heads. it's like "oh, don't nationalize health care, i have stephen hawking and i'm not afraid to drop him"

or "maybe you don't care about stephen hawking? is that why you want to make health care public?"

death panels+rationed health care+apocalypse catalyst=public health care and no stephen hawking

these people are crazy!

did you know...

that the u.s.a refuses to allow foreign nationals into the country if they are known to be HIV positive?

it's true. in some cases they'll allow a stay of 30 days but you have to apply to do that.

as well, immigrants with HIV are not granted legal permanent resident status except under very, very specific and rare circumstances.

if you're HIV positive and you want to cross the border into the u.s.a and you don't want to have to hide the fact that you have HIV because, you know, you believe that you should accorded full human rights regardless of whether or not you are positive you have to apply for a special waiver. the waiver is actually stamped onto your passport and is a permanent and visible record of your HIV status.
according to martin rooney, an HIV rights activist who was denied entry to the US in 2007,
"Barack Obama has not, and apparently will not sign the Executive Order to repeal the US HIV Travel Ban imposed back in 1993 by an act of congress. In July of 2008 congress voted for PEPFAR Bill with an amendment attached to repeal that Ban - Bush signed the Bill into law at the end of July 2008, but failed to sign the executive order "(from martin's facebook group "obama revoke the HIV travel ban now"-which you should probably join).

seriously? just sign the executive order. for real. denying people who are HIV postive the right to enter the u.s.a based on despicable stereotypes and bad science is beyond abhorrent and totally ridiculous.

honestly, obama was all 'im going to repeal don't ask don't tell', 'i'm going to close guantanamo bay', 'im getting a puppy', but he won't even allow people with HIV their basic human right to access and mobility?

walk the walk obama.


you can go here for more information on travel bans and HIV/AIDS___>http://www.plwha.org/(people living with hiv/aids)